More spiders moving indoors

More spiders moving indoors

Have you heard? It's spider season... and they're looking for love in all the wrong places -- namely, your house!

Fall is mating/breeding season for the "hunting" spiders like wolf and sac spiders. Males will enter homes and other buildings, visibly and actively looking for mates.

In an interview with Seattle's KIRO7, Entomologist Arolo Pelegrin had a colorful analogy: "“The males are basically like a group of guys on a pub crawl stopping at different bars to see if there are any girls in there. That’s kind of what these spiders are doing, walking around houses, looking in cracks and crevices. The females stay pretty stationary."

What kind of spiders will you be seeing at this time? Here are a few common invaders:

Wolf spiders. This species is found all over the world. As the weather cools, wolf spiders leave their outside habitats for warmer surroundings indoors. They don't spin webs to catch prey; instead, they usually hang out near the ground, waiting for insects to come close.

Hobo spiders. "Hobos" are found mainly in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states. They're driven indoors for mating season from August through October. Males, searching for females, follow pheromone scents given off by female hobo spiders.

Yellow sac spiders. Common in most of the United States, yellow sac spiders spend time in gardens during warm weather, and seek indoor shelter in the fall (much like hobo spiders) when the weather cools and their outdoor food supply disappears. They actively hunt small insects at night, rather than waiting for prey to be caught in a web. Their protective sacs can sometimes be found in corners of rooms.